Ben Bova - Exiled from Earth

In alphabetical order:

To Gordon R. Dickson and Harlan Ellison with thanks and caritas.

The General Chairman paced across the soft carpeting of his office, hands clasped behind his slightly stooped back. He stopped at the wide sweep of windows that overlooked the city.

There was little of Old Messina to be seen. The original city of ancient churches and chalk-white houses bleaching in the fierce Sicilian sunlight had been all but swallowed up by the metal and glass towers of the world government—offices, assembly halls, hotels and residence buildings, shops and entertainment centers for the five million men and women who governed the world’s twenty-some billions.

In his air-conditioned, soundproofed office atop the tallest of all the towers, the General Chairman could not hear the shrill voices of the crowded streets below, nor the constant growl of cars and turbotrucks on the busy throughways.

At least we saved some of the old city, he thought. It had been one of his first successes in world politics. A small thing. But he had helped to stop the growth of the New Messina before it completely choked and killed the old city. The new city had remained the same size for nearly thirty years now.

Beyond the fishing boats at the city’s waterfront, the Straits sparkled invitingly under the sun. And beyond that, the tip of Italy’s boot, Calabria, where the peasants still prided themselves on their hard-headed stubbornness. And beyond the misty blue hills of Calabria, shimmering in the heat haze, the sterner blue of the sky was almost too bright to look at.

The old man knew it was impossible, but he thought he saw the glint of one of the big orbital stations hovering in that brilliant sky. He worked a forefinger and thumb against the bridge of his nose. It was one of those days when he felt his years.

He thought about his native Sao Paulo, how it spread like a festering sore all the way from the river to the sea, flattening hills, carving away the forest, bursting with so many people that not even the Population Control Center’s computers could keep track of them. No sane man would willingly enter the heart of Sao Paulo, or any large city on Earth. No human being could live in the teeming guts of a city and keep his sanity.

How hard they had worked to save the cities! How hard they had worked to make the world safe and stable.

And now this.

The desk top intercom chimed.

“Yes?” The Chairman automatically switched from the Portuguese of his thoughts to the English of the world government.

His secretary sensed his mood. Her face was somber instead of showing its usual cheerfulness. “They’re here, sir.”

Nodding, “Very well. Send them in.”

Six men and two women filed into the spacious office and took seats at the conference table. The women sat together up at the end closest to the windows, next to the head chair. They carried no papers, no briefcases. Each place at the table had a tiny intercom and viewscreen that linked with the central computer.

They are young and vital, thought the Chairman. They know what must be done and they have the strength to do it. As soon as all this is settled, I shall retire.

Reluctantly he took his place at the head of the glistening mahogany table. The others remained silent, waiting for him to speak. The only sound was the faintest whir of the computer’s recording spool.

He cleared his throat. “Good morning. Last Monday we discussed this situation and you made your recommendation. I asked you to consider possible alternatives. From the looks on your faces, it seems that no suitable alternative has been found.”

They all turned to the stocky, round-faced Minister of Security, Vassily Kobryn. He had the look of an athlete to him: tanned skin, short, wiry brown hair, big in the shoulders and arms.

Shifting in his chair self-consciously, Kobryn said, “I see I have-been elected the hatchet man.” His voice was deep and strong, with barely a trace of a Slavic accent. “All right… it was my idea, originally. We looked at all the possibilities and ran each case on the computers. The only safe way is to put them in exile. Permanently.”

“Siberia,” one of the women muttered.

“No, not Siberia.” Kobryn took her literally. “It’s too heavily populated. Too many cities and dome farms for an effective exile. No, the only place is the new space station. It’s large enough and it can be kept completely isolated.”

Rolf Bernard, the Minister of Finance, shook his head. “I still disagree. Two thousand of the world’s leading scientists…”

“Plus their wives and families,” the Chairman added.

“What would you prefer?” Kobryn snapped. “A bullet in each of their heads? Or would you leave them alone and let them smash everything that we have worked for?”

“Perhaps if we talked with them…”

“That won’t work,” said Eric Mottern, the taciturn Minister of Technology. “Even if they tried to cooperate with us, you can’t stop ideas from leaking out. And once this genetic engineering idea gets loose…”

“The world is turned upside down,” the Chairman said. He spoke softly, but everyone heard him. With a sigh, he confessed, “I have also been thinking about the problem. I have also tried to find alternatives. There are none. Exile is the only permissible answer.”

“Then it is agreed. Good!” said Kobryn.

“No, not good,” the General Chairman said. “Very far from good. When we do this thing, we admit failure. We admit fear—yes, terror. We are terrified of a new idea, a new scientific discovery. The government of the world, the protectors of peace and stability, must stoop to exiling some of the world’s finest minds. This is a horrible state of affairs. Truly horrible.”

Lou Christopher leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk: his favorite position for thinking. In his lap he held a small tablet and a pen. Although he was both worried and puzzled, his face showed neither of these emotions. He was frowning and looked more angry than anything else.

Through the plastiglass partition that made up one wall of his small office, Lou could see Ramo, the Institute’s main computer, flashing its console lights as it worked.

“Come on, Ramo,” he muttered to himself, “get it right this time.”

Lou tapped the pen on the tablet and watched the little viewscreen on his desk. It was blank. Then…

“I’m sorry,” Ramo said in a warm baritone voice from the overhead speaker, “but the possible permutations are still three orders of magnitude beyond my programming instructions.”

“Three orders!”

“I can proceed with the existing matrix, or await further programming.” Ramo’s voice sounded neither worried nor puzzled. Not happy nor angry. He was simply stating facts.

Lou tossed the pen back onto the desk and slammed his feet to the floor. The tablet fell off his lap.

“Still three orders of magnitude to go. Lou shook his head, then glanced at his wristwatch. It was already nine A.M.

“I’m waiting for instructions,” Ramo said calmly. You and your instructions can both… Lou caught himself, realizing that the computer wasn’t at fault. There were millions upon millions of branching pathways in the human genetic code. It was simply going to take more time to get them all programmed properly.

Shrugging, he said, “Okay, Ramo, looks like we’ve got a full day ahead of us.”

Ramo said nothing, but somehow Lou felt that the computer nodded in agreement.

Lou got up and walked out of the office, past the computer’s humming, light-blinking main console, out into the hall. He got a cup of water from the cooler, gulped it down as he looked out the hallway window at the New Mexico morning outside. It had been barely dawn when Lou drove to the Institute. Now it was full daylight, bright and cloudless.